Hey Love Englishers welcome back to the channel I'm Sabrah and I'm Leila and
today we have a very honest lesson for you also a relaxed lesson yeah I got my coffee.
Starbucks. It's actually a holiday here in the UK so we're kind of relaxing
chilling out yeah it's Easter so we should be eating chocolate really yeah
that's true waiting for mine. I've got a hot chocolate so...Yes so today guys we are going to tell
you our honest opinion as English teachers about how quickly you can get
fluent in English before we get going guys I promised you in the last video I
filmed that we would say hello in some of your languages that I missed and thank
you so much for all your lovely comments yeah how to say hello we're learning
lots of different languages thanks to you guys yeah that's true we have people
from Somalia watching Eritrea, all around the world it's very very exciting so
you do you wanna start Leila okay I checked the pronunciation here so Russians correct
me if I'm wrong pre-vet pre-vet yes no it's not it's Privet, privet yeah
yeah it's privet there we go so Privet and I have
to say to India hello to India namaste namaste you get the easy ones I've got a
hard one later and Namaskar I believe it's also another way to say
hello in a different part of India yeah okay I've got Czest yep Polish
hello Poland and I've also got Sawadee Ka
Sawadee ka okay guys keep commenting tell us about your languages and we will
say hello another time or maybe you could let us know how to say goodbye
watch to the end and do that yeah so today is really just an informal chat
with you guys to talk about how fast you can realistically become fluent in
English and really what fluent means for you yeah that's right and Leila and I
have actually been teaching English a very long time for donkey's years we
would say, donkey's years is a great way of saying a really long time
yeah so I've been teaching since I was I started teaching actually in South
America when I was 18 teaching children and yes 10 years and a bit more on I'm
still teaching so how about you Leila I started teacher when I was about 25 or
so I'm 21 now how does that work out we've gone backwards let's not let's
not be too honest about our ages. Now as many of you know we actually teach EAP English for
academic purposes but we both taught TEFL in language schools so teaching
English as a foreign language now we focus more on IELTS University English
so preparing students with their English to go to university so being able to
speak in English confidently via presentations seminars yeah much more
specific now much more academic but I've taught IELTS before CAE
i know you have as well Leila, yeah FCE all the acronyms you can think of, yeah so guys I
think it's really important to say about fluency that this this word fluency can
mean different things for different people and I think there's so much on
the internet to say oh if you do this you'll get fluent or follow these steps
and you're gonna learn and that can work for some people but if you're finding
that you're following some of those and you don't feel you're getting fluent
it could be because actually you don't know what fluent means for you. Does fluent
mean to be completely proficient in English and like a native speaker
because that takes a very long time being honest it takes a very long time
and it depends on the person but it can take a very long time yeah and when we
mark people in speaking exams they have to complete the speaking exam as you
would in IELTS very similar at the university level but we don't actually
consider fluent to be perfect English yeah it's about maintaining conversation
yeah so not getting stuck when you can't remember a word being able to explain
that word and give a definition or an example in another way that is fluency
yeah fluency in in my opinion I think Leila and I have the same opinion it's
being able to communicate well in the language to be able to function in the
country which actually speaks that language
and be able to function well not always be able to understand everything but be
able to you know understand 80% and be able to speak and be understood that is
I think fluent in many ways, proficiency is different yeah it means perfect so
fluent think about what fluent means for you and and set yourself kind of
measurable goals don't set your sights too high to think I want to be like a
native speaker because yes you may want to be like a native speaker and I'm sure
you'll get there but it takes time and I think you've got to not be scared of
making mistakes making errors doesn't mean that you're not fluent again
Sabrah was mentioned mentioning proficiency yes so it's really about
maintaining speech if you make a mistake keep going that is fluency yeah, correct
yourself even English, flowing with the language, that's it, even you know native
speakers will make pronunciation and vocabulary mistakes on occasion yeah but
it doesn't mean we stop talking I've heard English people say, what is it they
always say , there is that really common mistake it's particularly common with
cockneys what is it like she don't yeah she don't my Nana does that I love you Nan
but she speaks like this so you know having perfect grammar it's
actually it's not really reflective of what a real native speaker talks like so
forget that when it comes to fluency, and the other thing guys right
big big tip here and I think something that's so important towards building
your fluency is it really does depend on the person everybody has a different
learning style a different learner speed what language have you have you learnt
it in the beginning so for example if your Arabic your alphabet is completely
different your brain is wired for a different language if you're Chinese
again it's the same completely different characters, completely different way of
expressing thought so it's going to take a little bit longer if your language is
very different in it's structures to English if you're a Latin from a Latin
speaking country that's going to be much easier yeah even without speaking Italian
before I could speak Italian I could recognize words in Italian because
they're the same more or less except with an extra vowel at the end yeah in
English so I could understand that quite easily yeah
and I know some people expect I see this with our students that sometimes some
students are a little bit slower to learn the language and they get very
frustrated when they see other people in the classroom learning more quickly now
you mustn't feel like that because as I was saying everybody learns with their
own speed and it could be that you are more kind of obsessed or interested in
being correct so actually you might hear other students
speaking I think all they're speaking so much and they're so much better than me
but are they correct? So that's the other thing guys if you're making lots of
mistakes ok yes you are fluent and you are doing well with that but it doesn't
mean you're necessarily speaking correct English so just be patient with yourself
and keep thinking everybody learns at a different speed I'm finding my speed you
know oh yeah and I think the important thing is when you compare yourself to
others it's not a great way to reflect on your progress
you really have to, you were saying having measureable goals, really consider where
you were two weeks ago compared to where you are now and you should be able to
identify and certainly your teacher if you have an English teacher will be able
to tell you what areas she thinks you're making progress in and I think picking
specific things that you're getting wrong so whether it's a
pronunciation error I've got a couple of Thai students at the moment and I'm
desperately trying to get them to correct l and r you can always go
to Sabrah's video, watch my video if you have that problem but focusing and having goals I
think is really going to help you become fluent and also feel that you're making
that progress to give you that encouragement and motivation which we
all need yeah definitely now another thing I want to say Leila and Leila I'm
going to ask you about this and this is that being shy doesn't help you to
become fluent and being shy is going to be make you somebody who takes longer to
become fluent so Leila tell us a little bit about that I'm not shy okay I'm not
shy in English I'm not remotely shy but a Sabrah was mentioning earlier that if
you are worried about the mistakes you're making you're called a concrete
learner you want to know the rules you want to know the exact grammatical
structures so that you don't make mistakes and because I'm a teacher
maybe I'm a bit like this so when it comes to speaking Italian I kind of
stick with the phrases that I know and I try not to push myself she's dogmatic
definitely I'm more aware of the errors I'm making and so I don't speak as much
as Sabrah does in Italian Sabrah is quite natural and just kind of you go for it
don't you but I do make a lot of mistake yeah so we're very different kind of
learners and yes maybe I'm more fluent than Leila but I'm not as correct always
so it depends what you want from your fluency do you want to take it more
slowly and not be as fluent but be very correct or do you just want to be able
to communicate and speak a lot and not worry about mistakes
it will depend on culture as well Asians relax really you can't learn all the
grammar perfectly at once, don't worry, it takes time in Asian culture it's very
important to be correct and I know that you feel very bad when you make mistakes
but you must relax yeah and Arabic speakers pick up a
grammar book we love you but pick up a grammar book right
okay so motivation now what is it that motivates you to learn English whether
it is business whether it's going to university like our students whether
it's looking for an English girlfriend or boyfriend who knows whatever your
motivation is really consider how you can achieve what you need to for that
purpose for that goal yes exactly so you know how motivated you are how much you
really want to learn English will hugely affect your fluency are you spending an
hour every morning listening to English podcasts reading the English papers you
know having English on in the background are you immersing yourself in it
depending how committed you are to it will really affect your fluency I think
the worst motivation for learning a language is your parents the students
that we have who have been sent over here because their parents just let you
have to learn English you have to do it unfortunately especially when you're
young you don't always appreciate these opportunities that are presented to you
and I think sometimes they're really lacking motivation they're just here to
have fun and they're not too bothered about taking this opportunity and
learning English yeah that's very very true
and I think you know the more you enjoy it the more you're going to want to
listen to English and want to talk to native speakers and you know really want
to become fluent in the language and I think when you see people that really
want to they do they learn, they learn fast you know, I think that is the biggest thing
you know what are you why are you learning
do you want to be that person who can speak very well in business meetings or
do you want to be able to you know watch an english movie without you know having
to stop and translate things why are you learning and it's yes really good to
keep referring back to that okay we would really like to know why you are
learning yes because that's something that could help us develop some lessons
for you if we're a people that are learning English for business then we
might even come up with a few business lesson business lessons business phrasal
verbs we've both taught business English yeah we have here that's true so let us know
what are you doing or are any of you looking to go to university here yeah
tell us about it guys in the comments we love to hear from you it's so exciting
to see how many people we've got watching us from all around the world
now as we were just saying guys yes it is all about your motivation and on this
channel we hope we'll make you fall in love with the English language that's
why we're called love English, or us! Whatever works brilliant guys well we
hope this kind of honest chat has helped you sort of be able to understand what
fluency is and how you can achieve it but also kind of taking steps in a in a
slow but confident way towards it also don't forget I asked you earlier tell us
how to say goodbye in your languages we've been saying hello but we like to
learn with you so let us know in the comments below and at the end of the
next lesson look out for that so thank you so much for watching and don't
forget to subscribe to the channel and have a look at our next lesson steps to
fluency that might be the thing that helps you learn see you later guys but I